Is Poker Really Just About The Money?

There has been a lot of talk over the past week or so about poker and the personalities or attitudes within it. Opinion seems to be fairly split as to whether the game in general is in a better shape than it was maybe 10-15 years ago with regards to the amount of personalities and entertainment that is involved in the game.

Some feel that the internet breed of poker treat the game more as a business and simply care for nothing other than the money they can win, whilst in times gone by it was more about the achievement and honour that came from winning a major tournament.

A blog post written by Lee Jones at PokerStarsBlog goes against that opinion with him claiming that the majority of poker players do certainly care about winning and not just for the money.

He cites a comment recently made by Phil Galfond in a blog post where he claims that it still hurts him to this day that he could only manage a 2nd place finish in a World Series of Poker event which would have awarded him a prestigious WSOP bracelet.

“The difference between 1st and 2nd place was somewhere around 350k. I can’t count the number of times I’ve lost > $350k in a day, and I usually get over it the next day when it happens.

That 2nd place haunted me. I beat myself up daily over a few hands, again and again and again, for at least two months. I still get a twinge of the regret from time to time.

I wanted the bracelet 100 times more than I wanted the money.”

Galfond is one of the most successful players from the internet era and it just goes to show that although the money is obviously nice, the title in most cases is the most important thing.

This video below with Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu being interviewed also shows his opinion on the game and that for him it was never just about the money but more for being recognised as one of the world’s best poker players. We certainly feel he has done that already

Lee then points to the fact that almost half of the hands played over at PokerStars are play chip, by players that simply enjoy the game for what it is rather than winning any money from it. This has to mean that the general consensus that poker is a game of enjoyment, right?